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Pepperstone Broker Review

A great short selling CFD broker - or buy?
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Pepperstone is a CFD shorting brokerage with a special interest in currencies (forex) and oil, as well as offering a wide range of investment opportunities. Customers can trade with confidence, knowing that Pepperstone is a great starter broker for those new to trading of all types. The company was founded in 2010 with the express aim of starting up a trading company fully ready, willing and able to take investment online. The founders had become frustrated with existing frameworks, which were cumbersome and slow to respond to trends, having been designed before the internet gave the markets the chance to dramatically speed up and improve its performance. The watchwords of Pepperstone, from the beginning, have been low cost spreads, superior technology, and superb, intuitive customer service-driven offerings. And largely, this mission statement has borne fruit for the enterprising Australian-based venture, which is now well-known around the world, and which has won many prestigious awards, including the 2020 ADVFN International Finance Award for Best Forex Platform, amongst many others for traits such as customer service and support, value for money, pricing, and products. Start trading with Pepperstone today!

Pepperstone Review

Pepperstone logo

Overall Rating

9.47/10

Rating Details

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9
  • Min. deposit

    €200

  • Platforms

    4

  • Founded

    2010

  • Regulators

    2

  • Country

    UK + Australia

  • Commodities/Crypto

    Yes, Yes

  • Stock trading

    Yes

  • Multi language

    Yes

  • Support

    Yes

  • Account currencies

    EUR AUD USD GBP

 

Background

 The site makes it very easy to find the various different ways of trading, from buying equity to short selling to spread betting. Spread betting is a useful way to either go short on a stock or take a chance that the industry will boom, bringing you a useful profit depending on which way you and the market go. Pepperstone clearly points out the risk to the customer – as with any trading it is possible to lose money as well as gain it when playing the stock market – so there is no risk of nasty shocks.


Pepperstone does not host its own trading site, instead relying on three third-party platforms that are available in a number of languages and that are highly customisable so clients can set things up the way they want to. Security on the site could be a little higher, with no two-step log in processes to ensure the sanctity of the accounts.


The Pepperstone site uses ten base currencies: the US, Australian, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Canadian dollars, British pound, euro, Japanese yen and Swiss franc – hence its excellent reputation as a serious contender in the forex stakes. The fact of being able to avoid conversion fees on many trades is simply a bonus. It also offers some of the best value for money when it comes to costs, with amongst the lowest fees, commissions, conversion and financing rates of any brokerage.


If there are any grumbles with the site, it is that there is a relatively high cost for making bank withdrawals from outside the EU or Australia (other withdrawals are much cheaper or free), so, if outside those two locations, allowing your money to accumulate until needed might be in order, so as to offset that $20 charge against as much profit as possible. However, the company offers an otherwise attractive range of withdrawal and deposit opportunities, including several e-wallets (NB, this list is correct at present, but Pepperstone has been known to tighten their access when it deems it prudent to do so) such as PayPal, Skrill, Neteller, BPay, Union Pay and POLi) as well as the usual debit and credit cards or straightforward bank transfer. Bank transfers can sometimes take a few days to be actioned, while card payment are almost instantaneous. E-Wallets tend to fall somewhere in between the two, although almost all become quicker once precedent has been established.


Opening an account with Pepperstone cannot be easier. The entire process is digital, so you can activate and maintain your account fully online at any time of day or night. There is no minimum deposit, which opens up the world of shorting, betting and buying to anyone with a little cash to spare. Given that most CFD traders insist on a deposit of around $2,000 or more, a zero value opening deposit is sure to be welcomed by those just starting out in trading. Opening the account is simple: filling in personal details takes mere minutes – less than half-an-hour – while account approval, once all the appropriate information has been provided, takes a much shorter time than a physical form-filling exercise, perhaps even as little as a few hours. Proof of address and ID must be supplied, but, again, this can all be done online, being verified quickly and easily.

Customers can come from anywhere in the world, with some exceptions which include the USA, New Zealand, Japan and Canada, as long as the country's government permits selling and buying equity on a stock market – some countries consider the practise to be akin to gambling and it is taboo.
 

Leverage

 In simple terms, leverage in the forex world is the capability to regulate a considerable amount of money. The broker offers a leverage of up to 500:1 in Australia and 30:1 in the United Kingdom. What this means is, if you have €1 in your trading account balance, you can trade €500 in the Australia based markets and €30 in the UK Forex markets.

Notably, leverage can either boost your profits or increase your losses. Thus, it is always advisable to be cautious when incorporating leverage into your trade. Usually, the huge the portion size, the huge the pip value, and the higher the effect on your profits or losses.

Retail client leverage

Forex - 30:1
Gold – 20:1
Index CFDs – 20:1
Commodities - 10:1
Equities – 5:1
Cryptocurrencies – 2:1

Professional Client Leverage

Forex - 500:1
Gold – 500:1
Index CFDs – 200:1
Commodities - 10:1
Equities – 20:1
Cryptocurrencies – 5:1.
 

Costs

 As well as being a low cost short selling brokerage with CFDs and requiring no deposit, Pepperstone! offers their customers a choice of accounts, from the free Standard account to the higher value Razor account (which does take a commission from trades) to something called an 'Active Trader Program' which gives frequent traders a rebate each month, depending on how many trades they have made.

The broker gets most of its fees from the low commissions and tight spreads. Well, this aspect offers an excellent, affordable trading environment for the traders to grow their portfolios. Of course, Pepperstone has some of the most competitive fees. For instance, the standard spread for currency pair such as the EUR/USD, it has a pip of 0.13 plus a €7 commission in the Razor accounts.

Generally, the razor account charges a commission that is equivalent to seven units of the base currency for every entry and exit. Similarly, a standard spread in the standard accounts for the similar currency pair is about 1.13 pips. Besides, the standard account is commission-free. In order to prevent a possible conflict of interest, the broker utilizes an ECN execution model.

The best thing about the broker is that it remains totally transparent about all involved trading costs. In addition, Pepperstone shows the traders how to access various swap rates for every instrument, and this confirms how committed the broker is when it comes to transparency. Notably, index CFDs and Equity are exposed to corporate actions such as mergers, splits, and dividends. With this, short contracts are debited while the long contracts are credited.

Now, when it comes to forex fees, the broker has some of the lowest fees when compared to its competitors. Ordinarily, the site charges the fees through the spreads and the commissions. So, you will realize that the commission varies based on the trading platform you use.

Additionally, it also offers incredibly low fees when it comes to CFDs. The fees for equity CFDs are incorporated into spreads. Luckily, Pepperstone does not charge inactivity account fees. Also, withdrawal for electronic wallets except for Neteller and Skrill is free. Moreover, withdrawing via debit or credit card is also free. For the Australian and EU clients, bank transfer withdrawal is also free.
 

Benefits

 +Pepperstone has competitive trading fees.
+You can go with with CFDs in ECN style here.
+Their plattform is fast and convenient.
+Pepperstone provide incredible spreads.
+Great profitable opportunities.
+Reliable customer support.
 

Drawback

 -Limited range of investment instruments.
-Limited research and educational resources.
-Unable to go short in more than five commodities.
-Alerts doesn't work optimal on mobile devices.
 

Platforms

 Pepperstone provides the MT4, MT5 and cTrader platform. As a trader, you can use any of the platforms regardless of your account type.

MetaTrader 4 (MT4)
MT4 is perhaps the most popular and common forex trading platform given by forex brokers and utilized by trades. While the platform’s interface seems outdated, the platform is powerful and lightweight for quick execution speeds. As a trader, you can trade directly from charts, make immediate executions to stop-loss orders, or even make a pending order.

cTrader
With incredible features and tools, the cTrader is indeed all-in-one forex and CFD trading platform. With an attractive and modern interface when compared to MT4, this platform is undoubtedly the second most popular trading platform. Besides the rich charts, this platform comes with fast executions, level II pricing, and advanced order types. Some of the incredible features on this platform include automated robots and the cTrader copy.

MetaTrader 5 (MT5)
MT5 has not been as successful as its predecessor, the MT4. While it features enhanced user-interface, it still lacks the backwards-compatibility that’s common in the MetaTrader 4. Thus, although the broker offers the platform, very few users use it.
 

Support

 A detailed FAQ page will answer most questions. Moreover, the broker provides 24/7 phone and chat support in addition to an online form entry and social media portals. In fact, the questions you send through the chat system will be solved within a couple of minutes. Another option is that is you are close to their local offices in Melbourne. You can go to their offices to get help. However, you are destined to get the quickest help from the online support systems.
 

FAQ

 

Is Pepperstone a reliable broker for shorting?

Yes. The fact that it has been in the business for almost a decade makes it dependable.

Can I short oil here?

Yes. You can go short with oil, stocks, and other CFDs.

How many instruments can I trade here?

The main instruments that you can trade with this broker are six; forex, CFD, indices, futures cryptocurrencies, and spread betting.

What is the minimum trade lot size?

0.01No news about Pepperstone available.